His Favorite Monster
by okaycomputer
Summary: It isn’t fair. But then, you’re Leah Clearwater. Nothing is ever fair for you." A ramble-y, drabble-y day in the life of Leah. T for just a little bit of language, and cigarettes.


**I know, I know, I should be working on Fallout. And I am, just slowly. I can't seem to get Leah out of my head so this is mainly my attempt to flush her out, so I can get Derek and Casey back in. This isn't very good and doesn't have a whole lot of direction and it's entirely possible I'll take it down after the weekend, but for now, it is here for your viewing (dis)pleasure.**

**So clearly not mine. **

**

* * *

  
**

You pretend it doesn't hurt.

You stand at the edge of the perfectly manicured yard, leaning up a tree and watching with impassive eyes. Your brother is wrestling with one of them, and the rest of your pack is sprawled lazily on the ground, unsettlingly comfortable considering they are in the middle of a field of vampires.

Except for you, of course. You're Leah Clearwater. You don't like anyone, and so you stand indifferently off at the edge of the scenery, smoking a cigarette and wondering if it was possible for you to get lung cancer. You smirk a little to yourself as you imagine the headline—"_Cancer Cure Found in Rare, Mysterious Werewolf Gene_." Wouldn't that be something.

"_What are you grinning about, B?_" you hear his voice next to your ear, low and teasing, using his special nickname for you. His breath is unbearably hot on your neck and you close your eyes, taking another long drag of your cigarette to prevent the shiver that wants to run down your body. It's weird how your desire for him always manifests itself in cold, rather than heat. Maybe the friction of hot on hot would just be too much, so it's your body's way of preventing itself from melting.

Or maybe you just really are an ice queen.

His fingers trail down your side, resting softly on your hips and you let out a long, steady breath, the acrid smoke making you feel a little bit like a dragon (even though you can't see it, even though your eyes are still closed). You can feel him moving, orienting his body around yours, but still you refuse to open your eyes. You can't let him see how much he affects you—even though he already knows. You concentrate on the rough bark of the tree behind your back, on the slight itch of the over-fertilized grass between your bare toes, on the steady, comforting motions of smoking your cigarette. You concentrate on these things because it's the only way to keep the heat from rising to your face, from letting your emotions and your hormones overcome what little sense you have left in your head.

You once had plans to be a biology major, so you know how this all works. But somehow, it doesn't make you able to stop it.

An errant ball flies from somewhere and nudges your big toe. The unexpected contact causes your eyes to fly open, the moment you had been avoiding so carefully. Because he isn't actually there. He wasn't standing behind you, or next to you, or whispering into your ear. As you fix your gaze on him, several yards away and playing with his precious monstrosity, you wonder if he even realizes you're still here. He's barely even looked at you since you got here.

You remember when _you_ were his favorite monster. You wish you could get those days back.

It feels like something is tearing inside of you when you finally wrench your gaze away, but you know its something you have to do. You can't quite bring yourself to leave, but as long as you're staying you're determined not to spend the whole day staring. You had always been taught not to stare.

The brooding, quiet man-vamp suddenly wrenches his gaze away from the newspaper in front of him and levels his scorching, searching eyes right at you. Jasper. The emo one, or whatever. You hate that he knows what you're feeling, even though you know he doesn't like it any better than you do. He looks at you hard and long, and you meet his stare unflinchingly. Finally he gives you a sad, tight-lipped sort of smile before going back to his paper. You want to be pissed because you hate pity, but you know it wasn't really a pity smile. It was a smile of empathy. A forced, unnatural, unwanted kind of empathy, but empathy nonetheless. You aren't sure how you feel about that, but a tiny part of you feels triumphant that at least someone sort of understands, even if it is in a creepy way.

You swear you see a twitch of a smile pass over the mind reader's face as that last thought passes through your mind. He is sitting near Jasper, having one of those creepy mind-only chess games with the pixie. Your first reaction is that this is the second time you've used the word creepy in about a minute and a half, but you guess that's kind of to be expected at Dracula's Castle. Your second thought is that it's weird seeing him without Bella glued to his side. Not that you're complaining—all the lovely leech couples are almost as bad as imprinted couples, and those two were probably the worse. You're kind of amazed that you don't vomit more than you already do around here, because it really makes you physically sick to your stomach sometimes.

You shift your gaze again and find yourself studying the little grouping of Bella and Momma and Poppa Leech. They're having an animated discussion about houses. How dreadfully lame.

And that leaves Rosalie.

You're only a little surprised when you notice the cold blonde beauty also off by herself, laying on her back on a blanket in the grace, face turned towards the sunless sky, eyes closed. If you didn't know better, you would think she was sleeping. You always found it kind of funny that Rosalie—the most cold, the most unnaturally beautiful—was also the most effortlessly human still sometimes. You've seen her in battle, so you know just how vampiric she can look, but in the little moments like this, even with no one around to care about such things, she looked more human than any of them. Even more than you and your pack brothers.

As if she feels your eyes on her, her eyes pop open and she rolls her head to the side to stare straight at you. She flashes you the most brilliant, ephemeral of smiles, and then instantly returns to her pseudo-slumber.

You're out of places to look, now, and so your eyes inescapably find their way back to him. He looks so happy, so carefree, laughing and tickling the baby abomination. His hair is slightly tousled and that smile is enough to light up the universe, and your heart clenches in that unsettling mix of emotions. You love to see him happy, but you wish that it was you that could make him smile like that. You remember when it _was_.

It isn't fair. But then, you're Leah Clearwater. Nothing is ever fair for you.

You've lost track of your cigarette, and the glowing embers of the butt singe your fingers a little as you drop it to the ground, crushing it under the thick skin of your heel. You remember when your feet were pretty and dainty and tiny; now they're big and ugly and calloused. Comes with the territory, you guess.

You pull the carton out of your back pocket, but instead of fishing out another one like you had initially intended, you drop it to the ground. You've had enough for one day. And you aren't just talking about the cigarettes.

Wordlessly, you turn around and walk into the forest, heading vaguely in the direction of the rez but without any actually intention of going home. You reach a small clearing and stop, dropping to your knees in the middle like some cliché movie.

You stare at your hands and wish you could cry, but the tears don't come. That part of you broke a long time ago.

At some point you end up curled on your side, in what could loosely be described as the fetal position, although your six-foot-one frame can't quite pull that one off properly. You drift on the edge of sleep, exhaustion pulling at you but you just can't quite give in, not just yet.

The silence of the forest is broken by heavy footsteps and the earthy smell of one of your brothers. Some vain, foolish part of your heart hopes it's him, and you sit up quickly, anticipating whoever has come to find you.

It's not him of course. You're surprised to see Embry emerge from the trees. Since when has he cared?

He sits down opposite you, cross-legged. _Indian style_, you smirk to yourself. Oh, if only you had a peace pipe. Embry either understands your smirk or is just really dumb, because he gives a soft chuckle. Neither of you speak for a long time.

After awhile he reaches forward and pulls an errant twig out of your hair, and for some reason the simple gesture almost breaks your heart. Your eyes feel wet and you blink rapidly, looking away for a second. But you don't cry. Because you can't cry. But you came close just now, and the both of you know it.

You look back at Embry, your brown eyes searching his kind face. You feel a strong urge to say something, but you haven't the faintest idea what. So you bite your lip and hope he'll speak first. But he doesn't. He opens his mouth, closes it, looks off into the forest, and then finally gets up. He offers you a hand, but you just stare at it, unsure of what exactly has just gone on here. Puts his hand back in the pocket of his jean shorts, and heads back the way he came.

And just like that, you're all alone again.

Eventually you get up too, but instead of following in the way Embry went, you turn back, and head towards your modest little home. Trudging tiredly up the stairs, you throw yourself onto your tiny bed in your tiny room, and think about the day. And thinking about the day invariably turns into thinking about Jacob. The whole fucking pack knows. Rosalie and Edward and Jasper know. Everyone knows except for him. Because he's too caught up in his stupid imprint that he doesn't even realize. He truly can't see anyone except for the demon spawn.

A little drop of salty water traces down your cheek and drops onto your pillow. But you tell yourself it was just because you had something in your eye.

Because you haven't cried since your dad died and you'll be damned if you're going to shed your next tears over someone who doesn't even see you.

Soon you drift off into a restless sleep, your dreams plagued by him. He's all you can see and sometimes in your waking hours you entertain the faint idea of _what if?_—but no. You know this was something you chose of your own volition.

And somehow, that makes it even worse. Because ultimately, this is your fault. You can blame it on fate, you can blame it on voodoo magic, you can blame it on the vampires, or on Sam, or on Jake or on any number of things. But when it all comes down to it, none of them _made_ you love Jacob Black.

The only one who did that is you.


End file.
